BRONX, N.Y - For the second straight season, the No. 8 Columbia men's cross country team raced to a runner-up finish at the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Northeast Regional Championships. The Lions placed three runners in the top-10 and tallied 78 points to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Cross Country National Championships next weekend.

No. 14 Syracuse won the Northeast Regional for the fourth time in five years with 57 points. On a muddy day at Van Cortlandt Park, Columbia defeated No. 6 Iona (third – 81pts.), No. 21 Providence (fourth – 90 pts.) and No. 26 Dartmouth (fifth – 101 pts.), for the automatic national bid in the 10k race.

Senior Jacob Sienko led three top-10 Columbi finishers crossing the line in sixth-place with a time of 30:24.3. Junior Daniel Everett finished ninth-place at 30:28.3 and just a step behind was teammate Nicolas Composto in 10th-place at 30:28.3. John Gregorek also added a top-25 finish for the squad with a 23rd-place time of 30:45.6. Sienko, Everett, Composto and Gregorek each earned NCAA All-Region honors behind their impressive runs.

The women's 6k race saw another standout performance from Columbia with a fourth-place finish from junior Waverly Neer. Neer grinned and battled with the front pack throughout the race to punch her ticket to the 2013 NCAA National Championships with a time of 20:01.8.

The All-Region honoree highlighted a seventh place finish for the Columbia women’s cross country team, which tallied a total of 228 points. No. 2 Providence took the win with 44 points followed by Dartmouth in second place with 84 points.

With another impressive race added to the season, Columbia will gear for its ultimate test at the 2013 NCAA Cross Country National Championships on Saturday, Nov. 23 in Terre Haute, Ind.